Immunology of Diabetes Society T-Cell Workshop: HLA class I tetramer-directed epitope validation initiative T-Cell Workshop Report-HLA Class I Tetramer Validation Initiative

BACKGROUND: Identification of T-cell reactivity to β-cell antigen epitopes is an important goal for studying pathogenesis and for designing and monitoring of immunotherapeutic interventions in type 1 diabetes (T1D).

METHODS: We performed a multicentre validation of known human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I CD8+ T-cell epitopes. To this end, peripheral blood T-cell responses were measured in 35 recently (<2 years) diagnosed HLA-A*02:01+ T1D patients using blind-coded HLA-A2 tetramers (TMrs) and pentamers (PMrs), encompassing two epitopes of preproinsulin (PPI; PPIA12-20 and PPIB10-18) and two epitopes of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD; GAD114-122 and GAD536-545). We also compared the readout of TMrs and PMrs with a CD8+ T-cell interferon-γ enzyme-linked immunospot assay.

RESULTS: Despite the minute frequencies of autoreactive cells detected by TMrs/PMrs, most (73-77%) T1D patients had responses to one or more of the epitopes used. All four epitopes were recognized by T1D patients, with a prevalence ranging from 5 to 25%. TMrs and PMrs detected more positive responses to the β-cell epitopes than CD8+ T-cell interferon-γ enzyme-linked immunospot. However, concordance between positive responses to TMrs and PMrs was limited.

CONCLUSIONS: Using a multicentre blind-coded setup and three different T-cell assays, we have validated PPI and GAD epitopes as commonly recognized CD8+ T-cell targets in recently diagnosed T1D patients. Both TMrs and PMrs showed higher detection sensitivity than the CD8+ T-cell interferon-γ enzyme-linked immunospot assay. However, there are some important methodological issues that need to be addressed in using these sensitive techniques for detecting low frequency responses.